A few thousand years ago, the Roman Republic was a functioning democracy based on the rule of law, sound governance principles, and consensus building among law-makers and decision-makers that made the republic a great empire and the longest republic in history. The five-century-old empire suddenly collapsed within a decade or two and disintegrated. The key reason, as prominent historians figure, is that the citizens facing some crises abandoned the rule of law that made and sustained the great empire -- the de facto superpower at that time -- and went after some flashy characters who promised the people an easy way out of the difficult times to bring “greatness” again if the people give them dictatorial power and their blind support. The Romans believed in the elites and accepted their conditions, which led to utter ruin.
That ancient episode holds a mirror before American decision-makers who are most likely nosediving into darkness and disgrace. I believe they will see what they went after in the next four years: A grand illusion. The greater crises looming large in the world today may turn catastrophic, as darkness is descending on America and the rest of the world.
The Gaza genocide is going to get worse, and the rule-based world will start to disintegrate as this epic injustice is a demonstration of the “might is right” policy of the superpower of our time.
How Trump may take the US down and the world with it
Trump is not a leader; he is a puppet of powerful predatory elites who have invested a lot of money to bring a “yes man” who is devoid of a moral compass, is extremely arrogant and self-centred, and is completely unfit to be the leader of the country whose policies influence the rest of the world. Only three elites openly gave $220 million to Trump and that is only the tip of an iceberg that is well-known fact, but the rest are beneath the surface, among them the most prominent ones are diehard Zionists because he meets their requirement to be a perfect puppet.
The most dangerous facts are that he is ignorant about history, statecraft, and everything that is going on around the world. He does not care about social justice, the sufferings of countless people in his own country or indeed around the world as a result of the American policy. He does not care about climate change, a crisis that is threatening the world in the here and now, and all he is interested in is to pour money into a nuclear arsenal which is posing yet another threat to humanity.
Trump looks up to rulers like Vladimir Putin, Noth Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, and Benjamin Netanyahu who has murdered at least multiple thousands of Palestinians and has completely decimated Gaza.
Trump’s “Project 2025” a 900-page policy paper which lays down how he is going to deport 85 million foreign workers from the US, increase tariff significantly that could potentially start a trade-war in the world, especially with China and Mexico, and he wants to end the Gaza War based on Israeli term, which translates to killing even more Palestinian people. He accepted a $100m campaign contribution from a diehard Zionist to deliver the West Bank to Israel as he handed Syria’s Golan Height under Israeli control violating the fundamental international law.
His plan for domestic policy is no less threatening as Trump plans to dismantle and disrupt the US government all according to the aforementioned manifesto.
An extremely greedy, power-hungry, and arrogant individual, the misogynist US president-elect is also a convicted criminal who was able to avoid jail as his lawyers are all filing for appeals at higher courts. It is simply mind-boggling how this man can occupy the highest office in the US, which is no less than the highest seat of power in the world. The domino effects of Trump’s policies may have catastrophic effects at home and in the world.
After two devastating world wars, the US was the architect and leader of the rule-based world order that helped protect smaller states like Cuba, Nepal, and Qatar from the aggressions of its giant neighbours. That world order appears to have dangerous cracks due to the shameless and barbaric policies of Washington and Moscow.
Trump is not a leader; he is a puppet of powerful predatory elites who have invested a lot of money to bring a ‘yes man’ who is devoid of a moral compass
What went wrong?
In 1956, during the height of the Cold War, American scholar C Wright Mills wrote the book The Power Elite. In the book, Mills exposed how predatory elites control Washington, how top people from business, the military, and political ranks have interwoven interests to collude and consolidate their collective influence on the government to serve their vested interests, victimizing the general people in the process.
However, Mills could not fathom at that time that a much more powerful predatory force would emerge after the 1967 Middle East War when Israel would defeat all its Arab neighbours, thanks to the Johnson administration’s massive military aid to them that earlier administrations had refused. After that victory, countless Western Jews who were not Zionists became diehard Zionists overnight. A disaster was in the making as the enormous wealth of Zionists and their lobbying group, AIPAC, started to establish a stranglehold on the US government.
AIPAC is the most powerful lobby in Washington that many consider “a cancer growing on the US government.” The US government started to trample its core national values and the country’s rule of law to comply with the wishes of Israel. The top people of the military-industrial-complex partners with the pro-Israel lobby and AIPAC. They make enormous money in a confrontational world with reckless arms trade and wars.
Dividing and ruling an entrenched democracy
In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, when the American people came to the streets demanding that Washington change its reckless militarism and arms race and make peace with its enemies, the US government seemingly made a U-turn. The policy of constructive engagement with China in the 1970s and the diplomacy of détente with the Soviet Union in the 1980s ended the Cold War in 1989. This period of peace and reconciliation among global powers – the US, China, and the Soviet Union – led to a wave of trade and diplomacy worldwide.
This period of peace and diplomacy was alarming for the elites, who make enormous profits from militarism and wars. In 1980, when Israel was bombing Lebanon, President Reagan called the then-prime minister of Israel and demanded to stop the bombing. Israel complied. All these urged the elites of the military, Wall Street, and pro-Israel groups to take the “divide and rule” policy.
Enormous projects of deception and manipulation were undertaken such as “Hasbara” to propagate and indoctrinate many Americans with fear-mongering and prejudice in America. The 9/11 incident delivered a golden opportunity for these elites to take full advantage and successfully divided and polarized the country.
Two projects of the elites which rendered the US government subservient to these predatory elites: The first one was the 1996 Telecommunication Act, which removed all the healthy rules and regulations to keep the integrity and independence of the media, the vital pillar of democracy. After relentless behind the scene lobby, the Act was achieved to hand over the ownership of the American media into the few hands of predatory elites, most prominent among them being pro-Israel elites. The second project took place in 2010, influencing the Supreme Court to issue a verdict allowing corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions on the pretext that restricting contributions is against individual freedom. These two monumental blunders -- pushed and propagated by the elites -- opened the gate for the elites to hijack American democracy.
The Trump victory is no people’s victory. It is the victory of the elites in America
American thinkers and intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and Ralph Nader have been warning Americans that the latter have been living in an era of great deception. Unless they wake up and take charge, America’s democracy is on its way to becoming an oligarchy.
Today, the Trump victory is no people’s victory. It is the victory of the elites in America.
Why vote for Trump?
American voters have been getting increasingly concerned with the state of their economy and immigration, while Christian nationalism and the rise of the far right have been two ongoing phenomena for close to a decade now. The last time when Trump was in power (2016-2020), he exploited two specific kinds of fears of the American people: One was the changing demographic due to the heavy influx of legal and illegal immigrants. The other one was the threat to the US economy from China’s exploitation of the preferential treaties the US had with China.
Trump addressed both fiercely to please many concerned Americans. He also catered to the business elites by giving them huge tax cuts that perhaps boosted the economy temporarily but increased inequality of income and wealth in America in the long term, meaning siphoning wealth from the poor to the rich. However, the ones at the bottom of the food chain are so preoccupied with making ends meet that they often do not have much time to truly get engaged with politics, much less be active in understanding the socioeconomic impacts of voting for one candidate over another. Trump took advantage of that preoccupation with gusto.
Those who voted for these predatory forces will hopefully find out what they voted for and wake up to reclaim their country and their democracy from the grip of these elites. These elites constantly promote the neo-colonial agenda of establishing and sustaining puppet regimes and placing authoritarians in developing countries, like Bangladesh, to serve their vested interests. As they profit, the American people pay a high price as the nation loses its credibility, influence, and leadership in the world.
Ruby Amatulla is Executive Director of Muslims for Peace, Justice and Progressive and Women for Good Governance.
